Results from the RING study, a randomized controlled trial examining the efficacy of granulocyte transfusion therapy in patients with neutropenia, were presented at the 56th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting.
This five-year study was conducted by the NHLBI Transfusion Medicine/Hemostasis Clinical Trials Network. Only 114 patients were enrolled—less than half of the number of individuals needed to detect a 20% difference between study arms at 80% power. Patients with neutropenia were randomly assigned to receive either standard antimicrobial therapy or standard therapy in addition to daily granulocyte transfusions from donors stimulated with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and dexamethasone. Trial arms were similar at enrollment for demographics, disease and infection types, and severity of illness. No differences between study arms were found for microbial response. Since the power to detect a difference was suboptimal, the efficacy of high-dose G-CSF for granulocytopenic patients is inconclusive.
